Especially in the case of heat sensors such as are used to switch on a cooling fan in motor vehicles and the heat exchangers provided in the engine compartment of the motor vehicle for cooling the internal combustion engine, the problem exists that the switching sensitivity and switching accuracy of the sensor are impaired during driving operations by dirt, moisture and moving air on the sensor housing. Premature switching on or late switching off of the cooling fan is the result with various undesireable negative effects.
It is known that a sensor housing provided with such a heat sensor can be covered by a capsule and thus protected against disturbing external influences. However, after the installation of the sensor housing an additional assembly process is required for this.
Since the wall of sensor housing for functional reasons frequently cannot be made in arbitrary thickness and since reinforcement of the sensor housing will also increase the weight, it is not possible directly to pass the forces applied during the installation of the sensor housing through the housing. Rather generally one attempts to apply the installation forces directly to a socket of the sensor housing. With this approach, deformation of the sensor housing due to high assembly forces can be safely avoided even if the housing for functional reasons or for purposes of weight reduction is made thin walled. As a result the encapsulation of the sensor housing is made more difficult since at least during installation the socket lying against the wall must be accessible to a tool.